History Channel Takes on Kennedy Family

The History Channel is looking to duplicate the success found by other cable networks that have launched popular scripted dramas based on bygone eras by developing one of their own.

And they’ve selected the iconic American family as their subject.

The network has ordered an eight-hour scripted miniseries centering on the Kennedy clan, scheduled to air in 2011.

‘The Kennedys’ will follow a “manipulative, egocentric father” as he lives his life vicariously through his sons. Like A&E’s ‘Mad Men,’ the series will take the protagonists through major events in American history, like the Cuban missile crisis and the civil rights movement.

So far, no actor names are attached to the project, which comes from ’24′ executive producers Joel Surnow and Stephen Kronish, who wrote the scripts.

“I didn’t want this miniseries to be a Valentine — there have been plenty of them — neither did I want it to be a hatchet job,” says Kronish. “I think it is a fairly even-handed look at people who achieved big things at amazingly early ages. We’re really trying to see them as people and to strip away some of the patina that has attached itself to them because of their early deaths and to show them, warts and all.”